The AGM

[Angelfire]

A venue was not discussed. Whilst the AGM locations rotate around the regions, I'd hope that they'd choose a location easily accessible for all members for the EGM itself.

Birmingham maybe.

 

[ips]

What was pathetic is that only about 800 out of 23,000 returned a vote.

probably because the majority of us dont really understand what its all about and have no interest in politics. Its a good job that some of you do of course but that i feel is the reality of it.

 

[Jeremy Baker]

probably because the majority of us dont really understand what its all about and have no interest in politics. Its a good job that some of you do of course but that i feel is the reality of it.

This ^

 

[Hotshot100]

No troll, just the reality for most people.

There where posts on here asking why the low voting and how critical this was - I don't believe most peoples perception is the same as yours and people aren't even aware of whatever it is - to most people this post would seem like a conspiracy theory because we really haven't got a clue what it going on!?!

And yes - if CPSA wanted to give me a discount not to get Pull magazine I'd gladly take it. I'd ask BASC to keep sending theirs though.

Sorry John, you're obviously not a troll but a member who doesn't realise what has been going on within the CPSA. I can assure you that there is no conspiracy, only a group of members who have been fighting to get a democratic vote and to make the board face up to its responsibility to the membership.

I know that you probably don't like reading reports but might i suggest that you at least have a look at the East Midlands report on their website and the link to the findings of the Q.C. who heard the case.

The CPSA have wasted over £30,000 of our money on a matter that should have been addressed 'in house'. This coupled with all of the other legal costs and compensation payments to staff who have sued for wrongful or constructive dismissal and at least one member who has sued for libel amounts to well in excess of £100,000.00 in the past 3-4 years. I am sure that you will agree that this money could have been put to far better use.

 

[Jonathan Sargent]

That's fair - I'll have a look later this week.

Key question as a stakeholder - have my membership prices gone up because of these over spends?

That to me is the key question most members will engage on and be interested in - in terms of control and voting rights most members don't worry as they're only interested when it affects them - either in the wallet or on their (currently) relaxing Sunday shoot.

 

[** Pending Removal **]

Bloody hell people.....your membership goes up every year......I have said before on many threads.....the board take the view that the membership should rise every year.......as the odd £2 does not matter to people...!!

If any of you read the board minutes then you would see that I was always the only one who always voted against it.

After reading a couple of things this morning, on two threads, I really think that you all deserve what you get. If you are not bothered about being informed or interested in what 'is done' in your name.............then you 'do' deserve what you get.

Enjoy years of spin to come.

 

[ips]

The thing is that a lot of us just want to shoot and have not got the time or inclination for politics. We assume that decisions will be made by various folk on our behalf who are into this political stuff, presumably there are regional comitee members etc. Now this may be naive and or incorrect but i think that this is the reality, and am just being honest.

 

[Richard59]

Nic, tend to agree with you there re the "deserve what you get" comment

 

[** Pending Removal **]

Well you know what.............I am going to join you now IPS..... :smile:

After 23,000 Cpsa members could not be arsed to return a vote, when it comes on a form in Pull magazine....with a postage paid return.....leaving just around 800 people who did.........then my feelings are that I cannot be arsed any longer either.......I am going shooting.

From now on I will probably just sit back and watch.

 

[Richard59]

Or it could be taken that 800 souls do feel that they want to get involved, ( admit I was not one of the 800) there is always a vast majority in any sport that do not want to participate in any organising / managing / committee work. There no magic wand to get them / us to,

 

[** Pending Removal **]

Nic, tend to agree with you there re the "deserve what you get" comment

Quite. Do you know CirenRich.......This was the first time that all the member had to do was to get of their f:::g arse and trot to a postbox and show and interest to protect their sport..... But sadly.....23,000 could not give a sh*te....... 800 could..... 57 ish traveled through snow to debate this very serious point at an AGM.

We as an association are really a Pathetic group of people......with most of the members whining that 'I only want to shoot'.......or 'I'm not interested in politics'......well peeps .........unfortunately politics comes with the sport.........it defends your clubs that could be threatened with closure, it is defends your rights to keep your certificate, it arranges the rules with which you play your sport, it is supposed to protect the continuing use of lead......etc etc etc

I will bet you CirenRich............that all the gobsh*tes that spout forth on here as experts on one thing or another, or even the helpful people who give good advice............ did NOT make a vote.....!!

I had 40 people from on here who wanted me to carry a vote (thank you to those 40 for being bothered about the sport) this was a higher % than the Cpsa got.......

Why......? Because it was explained in great detail on here by myself for months and recently by Sara.

The sad thing is that the serious competition membership of the Cpsa (baring 5 or 6) did not vote...!!!

What a disconnection to the sport.....!!

Well ........I think that yesterday we did the best we could.....we got the resolution stopped and we got the articles forced to be written properly ....with consultation with the whole membership.....to be done within the next 6 months (which i doubt they will keep to).....before going to a vote at an EGM.

So peeps....you better get reading up so you can have an informed input.......because I am f<>~d if I am going to wipe ass any more......

I AM OFF SHOOTING.....!! :smile:

 

[RobertBeard]

Low votes, low turnout... why?

I'm a CPSA member and don't have a clue about anything you're talking about? Why - becuase I turn up and shoot on a Sunday when I choose to, get a score recorded, get a classification, monitor results over time and compete for fun - that's why I pays my fees and joins CPSA.

So - if you feel engagement on this should be higher - in simple terms can someone please explain why, what's occured and what's going on going forward?

Five letter words and smaller for me please, no acronyms and assume I know nothing?

I can only give you an analogy.  I have been and still am a smallbore target shooter so I belong to the NSRA which is the national body.  We got to hold the Commonwealth air and cartridge Shooting competitions for which we needed to build new ranges of sufficient standing for the 2002 Commonwealths.  The building was grant funded but now we have this bloody great big building with lots of wonderful ranges that doesn't get used enough so we have to sell its use to non shooters to help pay the annual costs for it.  Anyway that's the background. 

Last year in the run up to the Olympics one of the last major annual championships to be shot before the Olympics was the 50m Championship for prone and three position rifle shooting.  It was cancelled!   No explanations, no reasons, to anyone.  Even the GB head rifle coach has never been told.  The Board have never answered the question.  We assume that the 50m range was either required to hold a wedding or someone on the staff booked a wedding not realising that the date was the date for the 50m championships.  It would be nice to know the right reason and if it was due to the range book/diary not be pre-booked with all the major championships then that is gross negligence in not having proper procedures in place for which the directors are ultimately responsible.

In  my mind if you have a Board that is not accountable to its members on something like that then you are hardly a stakeholder any more.  We've obviously lost it as members of the NSRA but my point in spelling out this story here is that the members still have some clout in the CPSA and that is how it should be and how it should stay.  They appear to be hell bent on taking away the rights of members so that they can do and behave as they see fit so far a the CPSA is concerned.

You must fight it or you might that one day they do something that you don't like and there's then nothing that you can do about it if you've lost your rights.

 

[Hotshot100]

That's fair - I'll have a look later this week.

Key question as a stakeholder - have my membership prices gone up because of these over spends?

That to me is the key question most members will engage on and be interested in - in terms of control and voting rights most members don't worry as they're only interested when it affects them - either in the wallet or on their (currently) relaxing Sunday shoot.

Thanks Jon. I fear that it does, this is a further example of the CPSA not listening to members or looking at the current financial situation. This is one of the reasons that I asked them to be more specific as to what was included in some of the categories in their accounts.

When I was Kent chairman a couple of years ago I got some membership stats from H.O. and they were quite interesting. At the time there were 916 members in the county but of these only 320 had ever shot a registered shoot. If the other nearly 600 only joined for the insurance this could cause a problem in the future as other organisations offer exactly the same cover at a far more competitive rate.

 

[DoubleBarrelledDon]

The thing is that as some have said they join the CPSA simply to facilitate being able to /shoot registered comps etc. Most people have enough politics and squabbling in their work lives as it is without wanting to get involved in the same during their free time. Fortunately there will always be those who are passionate enough to go the extra mile to try and make a difference but they will always in the minority; its human nature to accept the status quo (no old rocker jokes please!)

Sitting in the meeting yesterday i could'nt help but think back to listening to Seb Coe talking about the decision to have the Olympic ranges at Woolwich. He justified the decision and the fact that British Shooting had not agreed with it by saying "it is a fractured organisation"  regarding the issues it faced at the time.  Fortunately we did not have any potential commercial sponsors from outside of the shooting industry at the AGM yesterday as I am sure that if their had been then they would have wasted no time in voting with their feet and walking out of the meeting and the Sport in short order.  One hopes that from now on thanks to the efforts of all involved that we have  a framework which will enable the organisation to go forward in a positive and democratic way but please remember that there are a lot of people out there who just want to shoot and want no part of politics.  I have a great number of friends who shoot clays on a regular basis but when I ask them why they dont join this is definitely a factor in their responses "The CPSA seems to spend most of its time fighting themselves, how are they going to be any good at defending our sport??"  while others used phrases such as "bickering, children, playground" and others which I wont write here.

Yes, the turnout was very low but it always will be, I have in the past suggested having 2 membership rates, one voting and one non voting, with a price difference of say $5 or $10 between the two. I am quite confident that if casting a vote saved a member $10 on the price of the membership every year then 75% of the membership would be ticking the box each and every year!

I would personally like to thank all of those who took the time and effort to work so hard on the memberships behalf yesterday and hopefully going forward thanks to them the whole process might become a little less confrontational and a little more about supporting some of the really very good initiatives that have been initiated since NF came on board.

ps using new kindle keyboard so apols for the typo's etc.... 

 

[Mr.B]

 Any prospective Sponsor reading about the the the shambles at the CPSA and the appalling lack of interest by the membership viz proxy returns, would be well advised to keep his money in his pocket.

 

[ips]

Double barrel has it spot on the vast majority have no interest in the politics it might not be a good thing but it is the honest truth.

 

[Richard59]

Sponsors of anything but sporting interests in general only put any money forward if the consider that they will get a return on said " investment", whilst alledged squabbling isn't very attractive shooting is still perceived as aspirational and certain brands will want that association.

Not saying everything is rosy but doubt this latest spat will see desertion of sponsors, their own financial circumstances will determine wether or not they continue.

 

[sarachambers]

Yesterday, the Board took a pragmatic decision in withdrawing the special resolution, and consensus was reached as to a way forward in respect of getting new articles put in place. This is really positive and shows our Board will listen to the members. This is a step towards ending the bickering and power struggles - and, most importantly, will mean that things can go forward without incurring vast amounts of legal fees every year trying to make "tweaks" to the articles or defending legal claims.

The result will, hopefully, be a well run CPSA that focuses on looking to the future, running great shoots, getting funding for juniors and progressing the sport for years to come!

Then we can all have fun shooting!!

 

[Jan Powell]

My CPSA membership expires in a few days, I won't be renewing. Not only am I disappointed by the appalling way the organisation is run (the blatent spinning of the arbitration result was the last straw), i'm equally disappointed by the laziness of my fellow competitors. They're happy to bury their heads in the sand as the organisation that is supposed to represent their interests screws them over. They moan but cannot be bothered to do anything to make the situation better. Quite franky, they get what they deserve.

It's NSSA skeet for me. I'll join an organisation that values it's members and has the courage to admit its mistakes.

 

[sarachambers]

My CPSA membership expires in a few days, I won't be renewing. Not only am I disappointed by the appalling way the organisation is run (the blatent spinning of the arbitration result was the last straw), i'm equally disappointed by the laziness of my fellow competitors. They're happy to bury their heads in the sand as the organisation that is supposed to represent their interests screws them over. They moan but cannot be bothered to do anything to make the situation better. Quite franky, they get what they deserve. It's NSSA skeet for me. I'll join an organisation that values it's members and has the courage to admit its mistakes.

NSSA has not been entirely free of turbulence.  BSSA (British arm of NSSA) had a lot of troubles a number of years ago, but that has broadly subsided and there is much more consensus now - mainly because of the big overhaul and a change to the articles which took place those few years ago!!!   

It is up to you what you do with your membership.  However, everyone present yesterday, including all of the current board of directors, worked hard to reach a consensus and get the CPSA moving in the right direction.  I think that is to be applauded.